Paper to be presented at the Summer Conference 2010 on "Opening Up Innovation: Strategy, Organization and Technology" at Imperial College London Business School, June 16 - 18, 2010
IMPLEMENTING UNIVERSITY COLLABORATION STRATEGIES THROUGH PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT Jan-philip Dunowski Berlin Institute of Technology
[email protected] Carsten Schultz Berlin Institute of Technology
[email protected] Alexander Kock Berlin Institute of Technology
[email protected] Hans Georg Gemünden Berlin Institute of Technology
[email protected] Søren Salomo DTU Executive School of Business
[email protected]
Abstract: Although University Industry Collaboration (UIC) is commonly regarded as a valuable source for innovative ideas, companies often fail to integrate joint research projects into their NPD process and to align the collaborative activities with their NPD strategy. We therefore analyze how UIC project portfolio management may help companies to establish a strategic collaboration approach and explore options of its implementation depending on different collaboration strategies. In line with the exploratory nature of this question we conducted a multiple-case, inductive study. Based on senior manager interviews and additional archival material of 18 technology-oriented companies we analyze the link between a company s UIC strategy and the installation of portfolio management via strategic alignment, formalization and portfolio management support functions. Results indicate that UIC portfolio management involves the strategic alignment of UIC projects and the organization and formalization of UIC management during initiation, realization, and transfer phases of collaborative research projects. Furthermore, we show that different collaboration strategies require different portfolio management approaches. While exploitation and ambidextrous strategies require higher levels of formalization and centralized coordination, pure exploration strategies seem to be most effective when managed decentralized.
JEL - codes: O32, -, -
Implementing University Collaboration Strategies through Portfolio Management
ABSTRACT Although University Industry Collaboration (UIC) is commonly regarded as a valuable source for innovative ideas, companies often fail to integrate joint research projects into their NPD process and to align the collaborative activities with their NPD strategy. We therefore analyze how UIC project portfolio management may help companies to establish a strategic collaboration approach and explore options of its implementation depending on different collaboration strategies. In line with the exploratory nature of this question we conducted a multiple-case, inductive study. Based on senior manager interviews and additional archival material of 18 technologyoriented companies we analyze the link between a company’s UIC strategy and the installation of portfolio management via strategic alignment, formalization and portfolio management support functions. Results indicate that UIC portfolio management involves the strategic alignment of UIC projects and the organization and formalization of UIC management during initiation, realization, and transfer phases of collaborative research projects. Furthermore, we show that different collaboration strategies require different portfolio management approaches. While exploitation and ambidextrous strategies require higher levels of formalization and centralized coordination, pure exploration strategies seem to be most effective when managed decentralized.
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INTRODUCTION More and more often innovations do not result from individual R&D activities of a single company but originate from inter-organizational collaboration (Hagedoorn & Link, 2000; Powell, Koput, & SmithDoerr, 1996; Sáez, Marco, & Arribas, 2002). Nowadays many companies have opened their innovation processes and established various forms of R&D collaborations to address the need for continuous and sustainable innovation (Fritsch & Schwirten, 1999; Liu & Jiang, 2001; Ritter & Gemunden, 2003; Shane, 2002; Tornatzky, 2001). Especially university industry collaboration (UIC) has been proven to be a valuable source for innovative ideas and to enhance innovativeness and innovation success as partners often have complementary core competences and thus show a strong motivation to facilitate mutual beneficial collaboration (Gemünden, Heydebreck, & Herden, 1992; Katz & Martin, 1997; Mansfield, 1998; Mansfield & Lee, 1996; Perkmann & Walsh, 2007; Sáez et al., 2002). These relationships and their impact on innovation have been of wide interest in past research (Bozeman, 2000; Poyago-Theotoky, Beath, & Siegel, 2002). Besides universal success factors like mutual trust, commitment, and continuity, project management – established through clearly defined goals and responsibilities, project planning and monitoring, and effective communication – is seen as a crucial driver of UIC project outcomes (Barnes, Pashby, & Gibbons, 2002). However, apart from excelling in project management – which assures that projects are being done right – organizations must adapt a longterm view that links projects with the firm’s strategy in order to do the right projects. But many firms struggle with the management of a broad scope of projects due to a constantly changing mix of projects that present challenges in resource planning, prioritization, and monitoring (Elonen & Artto, 2003). Especially for UIC projects however, portfolio management is very important in order to establish a link between a firm’s collaboration activities and its technology
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strategy, which will increase the innovative output of such alliances (Starbuck, 2001; Wright, 2008). Organization and management of UIC portfolios however are crucial yet under-researched (Perkmann & Walsh, 2007). This paper therefore investigates the fundamental strategic and organizational challenges of UIC portfolio management. To this end, we conducted a multiple-case study using senior manager interviews and additional archival material of 18 large technology-oriented companies. Based on the rich data, we analyze which UIC strategies companies pursue and how they shape UIC portfolio management approaches. Relying on these results we develop a model for UIC portfolio management while taking different strategic orientations of the firms into account. Our analysis complements existing literature by better understanding the management of a company’s university collaboration portfolio (through strategic alignment, formalization, and project support functions). The rest of this paper is organized as follows. In the next section, we discuss different UIC strategies and present a framework for UIC portfolio management. In the third section, we describe the method of our research. After presenting our analysis of strategies and portfolio management instruments in sections four and five, we discuss their link in section five. We conclude with implications for research and practice.
THEORETICAL BACKGROUND Strategies, Objectives, and Barriers in UIC Innovation strategies are often discussed under the umbrella of exploitation vs. exploration foci of an organization – with the general conclusion that exploration strategy helps to develop and introduce innovations therefore increasing long-term performance, but exploitation is needed to jointly utilize complementary assets and thus to maintain short-term operational success (Bierly
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& Daly, 2007; Danneels, 2007; March, 1991; Nerkar, 2003). Recent research draws attention to this interrelation and stresses the argument that both strategies have to be balanced for sustained performance (He & Wong, 2004; Raisch, Birkinshaw, Probst, & Tushman, 2009) and a close interrelation between existing and new knowledge (Cao, Gedajlovic, & Zhang, 2009). In this vein, companies generally approach universities with one of the following three different strategies: First, pursuing an exploration strategy, companies seek to explore new knowledge in order to develop new ideas and technologies and thus to improve their competitive position through future product or process innovations (Löfsten & Lindelöf, 2005; Lööf & Broström, 2008; Tödtling, Lehner, & Kaufmann, 2008). Research collaboration with academia provides access to basic research results and economically relevant scientific and technological knowledge. It has been found to have a significant influence on technological innovation success (Cohen, Nelson, & Walsh, 2002; Feller, Ailes Catherine, & Roessner, 2002; Gemünden et al., 1992; Schartinger, Rammer, Fischer, & Fröhlich, 2002). Second, with respect to exploitation of existing knowledge and technologies, important incentives are access to well-equipped research laboratories and qualified research personnel, R&D cost reductions, a reduced time to market as well as recruitment of qualified students and marketing (Decter, Bennett, & Leseure, 2007). Third, companies often not only pursue pure exploration or exploitation strategies but combine these two with an emphasis on one or the other, which we call ambidextrous strategy. Despite obvious benefits research collaborations frequently face various hurdles. Industry often expects to obtain immediate solutions to existing problems whereas the universities favor longterm strategic enquiries. Universities are usually driven by scientific research and have an academic culture which is associated with openness and informality, while companies are characterized by rather inflexible, standardized processes (Decter et al., 2007; Meyer-Krahmer & Schmoch, 1998; Schartinger, Schibany, & Gassler, 2001). These barriers however might not exist
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per se in each type of collaboration. Formalization requirements and short-term-orientation might be important for exploitation-oriented collaborations whereas exploration-oriented relationships usually have a long-term research focus. Different strategies might therefore require different management approaches.
UIC Portfolio Management A project portfolio is a group of projects that compete for scarce resources and are conducted under the sponsorship or management of a particular organization (Archer & Ghasemzadeh, 1999; Dye & Pennypacker, 2002). Accordingly, project portfolio management is generally defined as the managerial activities that relate to the initial and concurrent (re-)prioritization of projects in the portfolio and the allocation of resources (Blichfeldt & Eskerod, 2008). Its three major objectives are maximizing the value of the portfolio, linking the portfolio to firm strategy, and achieving a balanced portfolio (Cooper, Edgett, & Kleinschmidt, 2001).
UIC portfolio
management however, which may be seen as a type of alliance portfolio management, is somewhat different. It usually involves multiple organizations, research projects are often conducted externally, and there may be limited transparency, flexibility, and accessibility. Recent research stresses the importance of alliance portfolio management to ensure that the alliance portfolio contributes to reaching the company’s strategic goals. It involves four tasks of portfolio management: formulating and integrating portfolio strategies, monitoring and coordinating the portfolio and establishing alliance management systems (Hoffmann, 2005, 2007). But while studies on project portfolio management and alliance portfolio management are quite rare in general (Artto, Martinsuo, Gemünden, & Murtoaro, 2009; Hoffmann, 2005), to the best of our knowledge no study has specifically examined the management of UIC project portfolios.
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Following the arguments of Cooper et al. (2001) and Hoffmann (2005) we characterize UIC portfolio management along its major objectives: First, as research stressed the importance of a link between collaboration activities a company’s technology strategy (Starbuck, 2001; Wright, 2008), UIC portfolio management should involve activities that foster the strategic alignment of UIC. Second, regarding the organization of UIC, dedicated alliance functions may help to manage individual projects as well as the portfolio as a whole (Hoffmann, 2005). They can help to monitor and coordinate the portfolio in order to balance it and maximize its value. It is also important that companies carefully choose which collaboration types they want to use since they have specific advantages and disadvantages (Upstill & Symington, 2002). Third, UIC portfolio management involves the formalization of UIC processes along the initiation, execution and transfer phases of collaborations. Companywide standards and customized tools for multialliance management may help to implement portfolio management (Hoffmann, 2005). We thus define UIC project portfolio management as the managerial activities that relate to strategic alignment of UIC and the organization and formalization of UIC management processes. The actual instruments to implement the different tasks of UIC portfolio are however unclear and thus explored in this study. Furthermore, while exploration-oriented collaborations might concentrate on informal longterm relationships and formalization may be counterproductive, cost-oriented exploitation strategies will require higher standardization and centralized coordination. Additionally, especially ambidextrous strategies might require a holistic UIC portfolio management approach to balance both exploration and exploitation-oriented collaborations and enhance knowledge flow between them. Hence, we propose that different implementations of UIC portfolio management might be needed depending on each company’s individual UIC strategy and consequently explore this relationship in our study.
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RESEARCH METHOD We conducted a multiple-case study using senior manager interviews as well as additional archival material of 18 international operating technology-oriented firms. In total 20 semistructured interviews were conducted in person at centralized UIC coordination departments or – if none existed – at central departments like corporate research or CTO functions and lasted 90 to 180 minutes. At every interview at least two researchers of the team involved in this study were present. All 26 interviewees were centrally responsible for the university collaboration processes and thus had extensive knowledge about each company’s UIC approach from a general perspective. Most of the interviewed companies are technology-oriented and thus rely to some extend on the results of basic research and therefore are more likely to develop relationships with universities (Bercovitz & Feldman, 2007). The annual R&D budget of the companies we interviewed ranges from 200 million to more than 5 billion Euros. They originated from various different industries, are all operating globally and most of them have more than 50,000 employees. We focused on larger technology-oriented companies because we assumed that only those have a critical mass of university collaborations and thus face the necessity to actively manage their collaboration portfolio. Please see table 1 for further information about the companies interviewed.
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Company
TABLE 1 Overview of interviewed Companiesa
Industry
A
Automotive
3000
10 - 50
low
C
Chemicals, Energy
5 - 25
< 50
200 - 1000
50 - 100
high
D
Automotive, Automation
25 - 50
200 - 300
> 3000
100 - 300
medium
E
Paper and Pulp, Consumer Goods
5 - 25
50 - 100
< 200
< 10
high
F
Telecommunications
50 - 100
200 - 300
< 200
10 - 50
medium
G
Aerospace
25 - 50
100 - 200
1000 - 3000
10 - 50
low
H
Manufacturing
100
> 300
> 3000
100 - 300
medium
K
Pharmaceuticals, Chemicals
25 - 50
100 - 200
1000 - 3000
> 300
high
L
Semiconductors
300
> 3000
> 300
high
N
Conglomerate
50 - 100
> 300
> 3000
100 - 300
medium
O
Steel, Engineering
50 - 100
100 - 200
200 - 1000
10 - 50
medium
P
Telecommunications
50 - 100
100 - 200
> 3000
50 - 100
low
Q
Telecommunications
5 - 25
100 - 200
1000 - 3000
< 10
low
R
Automotive
> 100
> 300
1000 - 3000
< 10
low
Revenue Employees R&D Budget Annual Joint (billion €) (thousands) (million €) Publicationsb
Joint Publications vs. R&D Budget Ratioc
a
A pseudonym has been used for each company in order to ensure confidentiality. Additionally, revenues, number of employees, and R&D budget have been grouped. b Yearly average of scientific publications with university co-authorship from 2004 to 2008 (Source: ISI Web of Science, Articles and Conference Proceedings) c Number of joint publications per hundred million Euro R&D budget and year (low ≤ 2 < medium ≤ 10 < high)
Following the suggestion of Eisenhardt (1989) we based our semi-structured interviews on predeveloped interview guidelines that helped the interviewees to describe the UIC approach thoroughly. The interview guidelines have been based on an analysis of existing literature on university industry collaboration, technology transfer and strategic alliances, and our own experiences from prior projects in this field. They contained 31 open questions and were grouped
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into the following sections: ―UIC Strategy”, “Institutionalization of UIC”, “UIC Portfolio”, “Talent Orientation of UIC”, and “Formalization of UIC Projects”. All interviews were recorded and transcribed which resulted in about 700 pages of interview text. Following the suggestions of Miles & Huberman (1994) we then coded the transcribed interviews using ATLAS.ti qualitative data analysis software. The analysis resulted in a total of more than 550 codes which describe the data. To portray the UIC approaches of the companies we interviewed, we used the codes to develop a conceptual framework. They were aggregated into different constructs along which we could describe the different approaches. To perform a within-case analysis, we then described each company’s UIC approach along the constructs using interview data complemented with archival material and wrote a four to six page summary of each case. We sent back the summaries to our interviewees in order to receive feedback about the validity of our understanding of the companies’ UIC approaches (Eisenhardt, 1989; Yin, 2009). Further on, we used a cross-case analysis to analyze link between strategy and structure (Eisenhardt, 1989; Yin, 2009). It is based on a matrix which displays the codes in relation to the companies. Following the arguments of Miles & Huberman (1994) we grouped the companies according to their UIC strategies and performed further analyses with these different types of companies.
ANALYSIS OF UIC STRATEGIES The first part of our analysis was to identify strategies that companies usually pursue in their interactions with public research. To do so, it is important to relate strategies to the companies’ individual objectives. Our interviews revealed that companies generally follow six different goals when collaborating with universities: to conduct strategic foresight, basic research or applied research, to realize a resource advantage and for reasons of recruiting or marketing.
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Since basic research usually means that universities are some years ahead in time, it is a reasonable goal to approach universities to get information about upcoming technologies and new trends. While some of the interviewed companies involve universities actively into their strategic technology foresight processes and consult their research partners regularly “to get early information”, most of the companies do this fairly unsystematic. As many companies have been trying to reduce their internal R&D costs over the last years, there has been a shift of research activities towards universities, since conducting cost-effective basic research is one of the universities’ core competences. Likewise, many of the interviewed companies use relationships to universities to conduct long-term basic research to supplement their internal applied research activities: „Cooperation is a relatively low cost way for us to work on basic research topics.”. However, for about one third of the interviewees collaborative basic research is less important. Collaboration with universities is also seen as an interesting opportunity to conduct short-term, applied research to solve a specific existing problem. Companies try to use the university as an extended work-bench and thus to complement their internal product development activities. Not surprisingly, this is one of the most often mentioned goals. Over 80 percent of the companies name collaborative applied research or development as one of their key objectives: „Sometimes we are just waiting for the projects to finish in order to then launch it in the market and apply it. You could almost speak of a development cooperation.“ Besides the availability of complementary knowledge and resources, many companies collaborate with universities for the reason of reduced costs and shared risks: “Collaboration is very interesting for us because a university can do a lot of things easier, faster, and cheaper than we can do them internally.” However, universities are not only high quality research institutions, they also educate potential employees. Hence, most of the companies who took part in our study
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also collaborate with universities for talent-related reasons. As most technology-oriented companies, they often rely on a “steady supply of high educated scientists and engineers”. Finally, some companies establish relationships with universities for marketing reasons. Especially in the medical and pharmaceutical industry, universities are often the lead customers for new products or participate in large long-term clinical trials. Furthermore, companies want to demonstrate corporate social responsibility. A connection to a university might even help to enter new markets and attract talents in foreign countries. Some of our interview partners mentioned that they strategically sponsor endowed professorships in China or India to attract young engineers to work at the subsidiaries in these countries and to demonstrate social responsibility. Overall, our analysis revealed that the goal systems of the companies are very dissimilar. While some of them tend to focus on foresight and collaborative research, other’s major motives are joint development and cost reductions. We could therefore confirm the existence of the basic distinction between exploration strategies, which focus the generation of new knowledge, and exploitation strategies, which focus the utilization of existing knowledge and capabilities (Bierly & Daly, 2007; Danneels, 2007; March, 1991; Nerkar, 2003). Some companies however have an ambidextrous approach and pursue both exploration and exploitation strategies as suggested by Raisch et al. (2009). Especially the very large conglomerates we interviewed, which have many divisions in different technology fields, usually pursue ambidextrous strategies and collaborate with universities on a broad basis for various reasons. Companies usually follow one of the following strategies when interacting with universities: (1) Exploration Strategy: The focus is set on collaborative research and strategic foresight to explore new technologies and generate valuable knowledge.
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(2) Exploitation Strategy: These companies want to conduct collaborative applied research and mainly find solutions for given problems, save costs, minimize risks and also collaborate for recruiting or marketing purposes. (3) Ambidextrous Strategy: Companies combine both exploration and exploitation strategies.
ANALYSIS OF UIC PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT INSTRUMENTS As we defined UIC project portfolio management as the managerial activities that relate to strategic alignment of UIC and the organization and formalization of UIC management processes, we distinguished between different instruments that relate to those three aspects of UIC portfolio management: activities to foster the strategic alignment of UIC projects, the organization of UIC, and the formalization of UIC management processes. Each dimension consists of different instruments that companies can use to develop UIC portfolio management. Table 2 provides an overview of the framework: TABLE 2 Elements of UIC Portfolio Managementa Strategic Alignment of UIC
a
Goal clarity
Top management support
Organization of UIC
UIC portfolio management departments
Portfolio structuring
Formalization of UIC
Partner selection
Project initiation
Project execution
Integration into internal NPD
Long-term commitment
Knowledge Transfer
Global UIC strategy
Project evaluation
The Framework has been derived from an extensive cross-case analysis. We used it to describe each strategic portfolio management approach of the companies we interviewed.
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Strategic Alignment of UIC Activities Since Starbuck (2001) and Wright (2008) suggest that companies need to link university collaborations to their technology strategy in order to establish long-term successful relationships, we asked our interview partners about the strategic alignment of their university collaborations. Goal Clarity. A crucial aspect of the strategic alignment of UIC is the clarity of goals. They have to be defined clearly and communicated throughout the company so that it becomes clear what the company’s intentions to collaborate with research intuitions are and everybody can act accordingly. While the UIC goal clarity of most of the companies we interviewed is comparatively small, some companies at least have clear financial goals: “For example, we have clear goals about the desired public funding share of our total research budget: 10 percent.” Other companies state clearly in their mission statement: “Cooperation supports different goals: They support or complement our corecompetencies, increase our flexibility in research and pre-development and attract best students and doctorates.” “Open innovation is no longer an option but it is the only way forward. We perform 50% of our research activities through external collaboration for the reasons of speed, flexibility, tapping into the best brain in the world, efficiency, economies of scale, and so on and so forth.” Top management support. The existence of top management support is one of the most often emphasized success factors in all kinds of corporate innovation processes (Cooper & Kleinschmidt, 1995; Pattikawa, Verwaal, & Commandeur, 2006; Swink, 2000). Accordingly, top management involvement will also lead to higher success in collaborative R&D projects. While only in some companies top managers show no involvement or just generally approve the open
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innovation process, most companies actively involve their top managers in their university collaborations. This is especially the case during the initiation of new partnerships “just to show presence, to get a picture of how the cooperation is running.“ A few companies even established formal mentor roles for key universities who stay in close contact with the university’s top personnel: „We have assigned a so called Partnership Executive to each strategic partner, [...] who should keep contact to the university administration.” Integration into internal NPD. Strategic alignment of collaborative R&D may also be achieved via its integration into the internal new product development (NPD) process. It may vary between no integration (fulfillment of uncritical tasks) and full integration (doing essential parts of the NPD process). Most of the companies we interviewed show a medium level of NPD integration, which means that they integrate UIC into their NPD process in some way but do not fully rely on the results: „We link our activities to our innovation project portfolio in some way.“ However, some companies see UIC as equal to internal R&D processes: “If we want to develop a colored mask and decide that a university partner should build the red ear, then nobody at our company is building the ear. But everybody is waiting for the university to finish it, so that we can attach it to the rest of the mask.” An indicator of the relative importance of collaborative R&D is the amount of R&D budget which is given to external partners compared to the overall R&D budget. Although in some companies the share of external R&D reaches seven percent, it is comparatively small for the majority of our interview partners: „We had a clear target, we wanted to refinance 10% of our research budget through public funded collaborations. That was the target, we reached 7%.” Companies with an overall R&D budget of more than five billion US dollar often spend less than one percent of that on collaborative R&D.
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Long-term commitment. The commitment to long-term relationships clearly shows a strategic importance of UIC, which is essential for effective collaborations (Wright, 2008). Like shown by Bercovitz & Feldman (2007), companies often approach universities to work on rather long-term topics. This is a quite surprising, since industry usually expects to obtain immediate solutions for existing problems, whereas only universities favor long-term strategic enquiries. However, most of our interview partners seem to have understood the necessity of commitment and usually engage in long-term partnerships: „We find that incredibly difficult. We have great respect for long-term commitments because they very much restrict us in our freedom of action." Global UIC strategy. A further important aspect of UIC alignment is the existence of a global UIC strategy. Since the location of a company’s headquarters or research center does not necessarily have to be the location of a world class university, many companies collaborate internationally: “It has to be one feel, one look. Everything has to have a global flavor with local fine-tuning, but it is one image, one research department that operates globally with local customization.” However, strong ties to a local partner are also seen to be important for an effective regular exchange of knowledge. A pretty common picture is global-local relationships, meaning the companies’ international collaborations are usually with universities located closely to a research center, which then manages the collaboration locally: “For a long time the strategy was to cooperate with the most famous institutes. Today we‟ve got a well-balanced mixture of local and international partnerships. Too much distance is disadvantageous.”
Organization of UIC Besides the strategic alignment, companies need to establish an organizational framework for UIC (Starbuck, 2001; Wright, 2008).
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UIC portfolio management functions. One key aspect of the organization of UIC is the existence of dedicated UIC department within a company’s organizational structure. This department might be responsible for many aspects of the collaboration process such as partner selection, establishing formalized project management processes, and general management of the UIC portfolio. However, the organizational position of such UIC departments varies a lot among the companies we interviewed. Only some have dedicated centralized UIC coordination functions: “I am part of a worldwide organization. There‟s one worldwide leader of the university relations team. And he has got someone responsible for Europe, one for Asia, one for America …” “We report directly to the CTO, working therefore on corporate level. Like our colleagues from HR department who deal with recruiting.” Other firms integrate UIC portfolio management tasks into innovation or strategic management functions, and many coordinate UIC very decentralized or do not coordinate UIC at all: “A specific function, which deals mainly with university cooperation, is not available.” Besides existence and organizational position of UIC coordination departments, centralized tasks of such departments are important when characterizing the organization of UIC activities. There are several centralized activities which involve the collaboration portfolio as a whole. UIC departments might to some extent coordinate and prioritize the activities with universities, establish strategic partnerships, perform matchmaking and keep track of UIC success. Most of the companies we interviewed just keep track of the collaboration activities. However, some companies manage their collaborations to key universities within the central departments. “My duty is to get an overview of everything which arrives from universities, and of everyone who leaves our company in that direction.” “My job is to bring transparency to what we do and visibility across all the units, so that we avoid duplication and share best practices. And I try to have a strategic outlook and get
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involved in all the legal and promotional aspects as well as the preparation of new collaborations.” Central departments might also be involved in the initiation or execution of UIC projects, which is rarely the case in the companies we interviewed. Most of them are only involved during the beginning (especially during contracting). However, some central departments assist project managers in coping with the organizational overhead of public funded projects. “We have to coordinate everything, see if everything is working fine. Perhaps support people who need help.” Portfolio structuring. Another very important aspect of the organization of UIC activities is the selection of collaboration types, since there are many ways in which companies and universities may collaborate (Arvanitis, Kubli, & Woerter, 2008; Katz & Martin, 1997). Companies should determine the best fitting collaboration type for each individual collaborative agreement as each of them have some specific advantages and disadvantages (Upstill & Symington, 2002). One of the companies we interviewed was very aware of that: “This transaction spectrum can be used to influence openness, speed, IPR accessibility and costs of the relationships.” The companies we interviewed mainly use four collaboration types. First, contract research is the most common among them. In such bilateral relationships industry hires universities to solve a specific problem within a certain time under predefined conditions by their own (D'Este & Patel, 2007; Lee & Win, 2004; Motohashi, 2005; Perkmann & Walsh, 2007). Its major advantages are that it can be used to solve specific given problems at limited risk and that intellectual property rights (IPRs) are fairly easy to handle (Liefner & Schiller, 2008). However, the formalization often limits the freedom of research to the predefined goals and therefore rarely produces highly innovative outcomes. Among our interview partners, contract research is the
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most common and often preferred mode of collaboration: “It‟s one of the easiest elements, you don‟t have to argue about patents. Everything we pay for is owned by us. That‟s wonderful.” Second, endowed research (i.e., the funding of research in a certain scientific field of the firm’s interest with somewhat undefined research outcomes) may result in very innovative concepts at calculable risk. But since this collaboration type is mostly used for loose, long-term basic research, companies cannot find quick solutions for given problems and have little control about the concrete research project (Breznitz, O'Shea, & Allen, 2008; Meyer-Krahmer & Schmoch, 1998). While half of the companies we interviewed pursue this collaboration type pretty intensely, others avoid it completely. The major advantage is seen as the “possibility to create something new.” Companies often establish endowed professorships in a field they consider as underresearched. They also try to build a more direct link to students and demonstrate corporate social responsibility. However: “An endowed professorship is always a balancing act: You don‟t just want to give your money away but on the other hand don‟t want to draw the reins too much, since professors might get limited in their freedom of research.” Third, joint research, where researchers from both industry and universities closely work together towards a shared goal and are often co-located in on-campus joint research labs, is an often preferred collaboration type. It fosters an intensive bi-directional knowledge exchange and supports the transfer of research results into industry. Additionally, although the long-term commitment to one research partner limits flexibility and binds resources and budget, intense, long-term joint research with non-predefined research goals may increase the degree of innovativeness (D'Este & Patel, 2007; Meyer-Krahmer & Schmoch, 1998). Our interview partners often try to foster an extensive exchange between internal and university researchers though co-location and establishment of joint labs on campus. Many of the companies we
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interviewed intent to enhance engagement in joint research in the future. Although ―these types of collaborations need more time to start”, they see potential synergy effects. “Affiliated institutes open possibilities to realize things which aren‟t possible within the usual framework of a university.” “Most of our research with the university here is done in the same lab, using the same facilities, our people, their people, the same place, the same machines, some built by us, some preexisting.” Fourth, collaboration between industry and academia often takes place in (often public funded) research consortia. Half of the companies we interviewed regularly participate in public funded research, mainly to engage in standardization, exchange information with others and receive research funds from the government. However, all companies see that there is a “huge organizational overhead”. This is the main reason why nearly half of the companies do not want to engage in this kind of partnerships very much.
Formalization of UIC Processes Like for internal processes, companies often try to establish some sort of formalization for collaboration projects. This is an important task of portfolio management implementation (Hoffmann, 2005). Partner selection. Most of the companies we interviewed establish new collaborations pretty randomly because they are driven by a certain need: „Collaborations generally emerge from certain task that needs to be fulfilled.“ While many of the companies select their partners based on personal ties, others developed scorecards to classify potential partners based on their competences, size, and reputation. Most of the companies approach institutes or single professors based on their individual qualification, only some select university as a whole.
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“95 percent of our collaborations are based on personal relationships. Who do you call first? Your doctoral advisor!” „We have a rating system where we classify universities according to their size, know-how, image, networks, and other characteristics. Then we decide with which ones we„d like to collaborate. “ Project initiation. The initiation of UIC projects is usually not very formalized. Only some companies established a structured initiation process: „One condition during the initiation of a collaboration project is the existence of a business plan. The project leader has to present the ideas and to demonstrate how we can get some money out of this investment.“ Although there is only little formalization of the initiation process, most of the companies have standardized IP agreements: „The contracts are identical and quite straight. Sometimes we change something but in general IPRs are defined very clearly.“ Project Execution. UIC projects are usually treated like internal projects and integrated into normal project management: “Collaborations are integrated into our standard R&D project tools, where we plan and control costs and milestones.” Sometimes companies even seem to have no project management for this kind of project at all and rely on the individual, subjective monitoring by the research unit. Technology Transfer. Although all our interview partners agree on the importance of a proper transfer, only some of them established formal transfer processes. Usually they rely on project documentation and transfer by people: „That's only possible with people. You have to be present at the university and build the bridge to the company and vice versa.“ Besides dedicated transfer activities, some companies established other instruments to help the transfer of knowledge. Many have communities of practice, where UIC projects are discussed on
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a regular basis, others use knowledge management databases. However, most companies do not support the transfer process very well: “I don‟t like to do things virtually. Innovation happens at the coffee machine where people communicate and exchange ideas.” „There are communities of practice where we discuss such things.“ Since UIC projects usually generate a lot of new knowledge, it might be crucial to establish a formal knowledge management to transfer the knowledge to the company and disseminate it. Despite the obvious benefits, most of the companies did not establish effective knowledge management tools or failed to do so. Only two of them have dedicated databases for UIC projects where project reports are uploaded: “We‟ve got a database which contains reports from all collaborations with full results. That‟s available company-wide.” Knowledge management is generally seen to be very complex and no company seems to have a panacea. Project Evaluation. Single project success is commonly defined along the three dimensions of the familiar project management triangle: cost, schedule, and quality (Gardiner & Stewart, 2000). Delivering projects on time, within budget, and to specifications has often been used as criteria for project success (Pinto & Prescott, 1990; Shenhar, Dvir, Levy, & Maltz, 2001). However this ‘operational mindset’ has been criticized and other success criteria like the fulfillment of customer needs and requirements have been proposed (Dvir, Lipovetsky, Shenhar, & Tishler, 1998; Griffin & Page, 1996; Shenhar et al., 2001). The evaluation of the success is regarded to be important: „Has there been a successful transfer? How much Euros did we get out of it? That„s what you„re interested in, the ROI question. And therefore you need a specific number of Euros, although it„s hard to determine.“ However, most of the companies we interview only assess the achievement of time, cost, and quality goals: “We
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define a clear task and want that it is solved at the defined time with the defined quality and the university get„s the defined budget for that.“ Some companies on the other hand use special key performance indicators to determine the success of UIC projects: “The expected commercial value is an important indicator. It is – of course – imprecise, but if we find out that our pipeline is worth roughly 1.5 Billion, that‟s fine.” Another company developed a five dimensional measurement system for UIC outcomes. They use publication, patents, publicity, prototypes and product transfers as indicator and measure them on a monthly basis trough a lightweight tool: “It's only one lightweight tool that our scientists need to use at this point of time. There's not even one question too much in there.” They even used this to measure the effectiveness of open innovation processes: “How much do we invest in open innovation and what comes out.” Comparing the time and money spend for open innovation this company found that there is a “high correlation between time spend in open innovation and the amount of publications and filed patents.”
ANALYSIS OF THE LINK BETWEEN UIC STRATEGIES AND PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT APPROACHES After the first analysis of UIP portfolio management instruments, we analyzed whether there are differences in the structure of UIC between companies with different UIC strategies. We therefore analyzed the degree of strategic alignment and formalization and the organizational structure for each strategy and developed propositions of ideal portfolio management approaches.
Ambidextrous strategies Companies with ambidextrous approaches often have an advanced portfolio management and tend to have very high degrees of formalization and strategic alignment and frequently
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established high-ranked organizational structures. This might result from the fact that the companies with ambidextrous strategies are often large, R&D intensive companies and thus often have a large collaboration portfolio. This confirms the statement of Fontana et al. (2006) that large and R&D intensive firms are more likely to engage in UIC on a broad basis. Those companies usually require a certain level of formalization and adequate portfolio management. Additionally, companies with ambidextrous strategies often establish centralized departments that manage the UIC portfolio, often located in the corporate research department. They also tend to pursue each collaboration type quite intensely. However, companies with ambidextrous strategies also often report problems that might occur during the collaboration process. Their largest concerns are differences in mindsets, imperfect information, intellectual property rights and different time scopes. To overcome these barriers they usually carefully manage their collaborations. A high strategic importance of UIC usually drives them to align their UIC approach to their strategic goals and foster centralization and formalization. Proposition 1: Ambidextrous strategies, in which companies intend to collaborate with universities on a broad basis to both explore new knowledge and exploit existing capabilities, require a high UIC portfolio management proficiency. This demands a strategic alignment of UIC activities as well as concrete organizational functions that manage the collaboration portfolio and formalized processes. A mixture of different collaboration types should be used.
Exploitation strategies Exploitation-oriented companies sometimes also have high-ranked organizational functions as they tend to combine the collaborative R&D activities with recruiting activities, which are usually conducted by a central HR department. Formalization and strategic alignment of UIC are
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however a little less professionalized. They seem to prefer contract research to fulfill their shortterm needs which requires less formalization. Although these companies also report different time scopes and imperfect information to be a problem, they thus seem to have IPRs under control as those can be handled more easily in contract research agreements. Proposition 2: Exploitation strategies, in which companies‟ major objectives to collaborate with universities are to exploit complementary capabilities and utilize existing technologies, require medium proficiency of UIC portfolio management. While it is important to establish some sort of general coordination of UIC activities, strategic alignment as well as formalized processes are less essential. The best collaboration form for exploitation is contract research.
Exploration strategies Companies pursuing a pure exploration strategy frequently do not have such high degrees of formalization and strategic alignment and manage their portfolios very decentralized. This might result from the fact that their collaborations are usually driven informally by the corporate research department or business units and the collaboration project is usually managed individually on a lower level. These companies usually do not have centralized UIC departments. Joint research is by far the preferred collaboration type for companies with exploration strategies. This indicates that joint research might be the best way to do collaborative research and results in the generation of new knowledge. Explorative companies also report differences in mindsets and time scopes as well as IP to be a problem, but do not encounter imperfect information. The reason for that might be that these companies usually have very close long-term relationships and their engagement in joint research seems to reduce information deficits but raise IP concerns.
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Proposition 3: Exploration strategies, where companies focus on the generation of new knowledge and technologies, do not require centralized portfolio management. While it is generally important to establish some sort of strategic alignment, those collaborations are best managed decentralized and less formal. Companies should focus joint research or endowed research. DISCUSSION & CONCLUSIONS Summary of Findings and Conclusion Our results show that there is a great variety in UIC portfolio management approaches. Companies collaborate with universities for mainly three different reasons: to conduct collaborative basic research (exploration strategy), to support their new product development process (exploitation strategy), and with a combination of these two strategies (ambidextrous strategy). The latter is necessary for sustained innovation performance (Raisch et al., 2009) and a close interrelation between existing and new knowledge (Cao et al., 2009). Depending on the specific goal system of each company, different organizational settings and a combination of different collaboration types are implemented. There are major barriers to mind during the collaboration process, especially differences in time scopes and mindsets and intellectual property concerns were often reported (Decter et al., 2007; Hall, Link, & Scott, 2001; MeyerKrahmer & Schmoch, 1998; Schartinger et al., 2001). Companies should pursue a strategic portfolio management approach for their collaborative activities to overcome these barriers (Starbuck, 2001; Wright, 2008). We distinguished between three different aspects of portfolio management: First, the strategic alignment of UIC activities seems to be much diffused within bigger technology-oriented firms. It can be achieved by setting and communicating clear goals, getting the support of top
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management and involving them into UIC activities, integrating UIC into the NPD process, and establishing long-term relationships. In accordance with literature we find a high importance of strategic alignment (Starbuck, 2001; Wright, 2008). Second, regarding the organization of UIC some companies established central departments which are responsible for the coordination of university collaborations. They usually keep contact with key partner universities, try to establish transparency, foster knowledge exchange, and support the overhead of public funded projects. However, the existence of special UIC departments is still rare. We could also show that companies mainly use four different ways to collaborate with universities: contract research, joint research, endowed research and participation in research consortia (Brockhoff, Gupta Ashok, & Rotering, 1991; Meyer-Krahmer & Schmoch, 1998; Perkmann & Walsh, 2007). Companies should carefully determine the best fitting collaboration type for each collaborative agreement as they have specific advantages and disadvantages which companies should be aware of (Upstill & Symington, 2002). Third, some companies formalized parts of the UIC process (e.g. formal processes to initiate new projects), but the assessment of success and especially the technology transfer process is often quite chaotic. Companies tend to rely on informal knowledge transfer by people or have irregularly updated databases containing project documentation. Some companies however established communities of practice and at least regularly discuss upcoming topics in staff meetings. Only a few companies perform dedicated measurements of UIC project success. Most of them treat UIC projects like internal projects and evaluate time, cost, and quality goals, which hardly seem useful. Our further analyses show that companies with ambidextrous strategies invest more in a portfolio management of UIC activities than those just following pure exploration or exploitation strategies. The management of exploration approaches is often decentralized and informal. Companies with exploration strategies usually engage in close, long-term joint research, while
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companies with exploitation strategies seem to prefer contract research to fulfill their short-term needs. Companies with ambidextrous strategies usually use each collaboration type. Overall, our results suggest that proper portfolio management of UIC activities is very important, as also highlighted by Starbuck (2001) and Wright (2008). Our study contributes to existing literature in mainly two ways: First, we were able to identify crucial elements of UIC portfolio management, which has not yet been fully understood (Perkmann & Walsh, 2007). We used them to develop a conceptual framework of UIC portfolio management that outlines the implementation of UIC strategies and thus were able to show how companies can implement UIC portfolio management through strategic alignment, formalization, and an organizational structure. Second, we analyzed the link between UIC strategy and portfolio management activities and were able to show that different strategies require different implementations of portfolio management. We propose the following framework to implement UIC portfolio management:
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TABLE 3 Implementation of UIC Portfolio Management
a
b
c
d
UIC Strategya
Strategic Alignmentb
Organizationc
Formalizationd
Exploration Strategy
medium
decentralized joint or endowed research
low
Exploitation Strategy
medium
centralized contract research
medium
Ambidextrous Strategy
high
centralized various types
high
While exploration strategies are targeted towards the generation of new knowledge and capabilities in order to achieve long-term success, exploitation strategies focus on the valorization of existing knowledge and short-term results. An ambidextrous strategy is the combination of both strategies that yields to the exploration of new and the exploitation of existing knowledge. Strategic alignment may be achieved via goal clarity, top management support, integration of UIC activities into internal NPD, long-term commitment, and a global UIC strategy. When shaping the organizational structure of UIC, companies may install centralized departments that manage the collaboration portfolio and deliberately structure the portfolio by choosing a mix of different collaboration forms. The formalization of UIC involves a standardized partner selection, project initiation, execution and evaluation, as well as a dedicated technology transfer processes.
Implications for Future Research Our findings suggest that different kinds of portfolio management seem to be necessary for each UIC strategy. But since our research is based on interviews and the success of UIC is generally hard to assess, we do not have any hard success criteria of the different UIC approaches and therefore rely to some extent on our own appraisal. We tried to cope with this limitation by collection some secondary success data such as the above mentioned external data about joint publications. However, the measurement of innovation performance is generally considered to be very difficult. It requires a long-term, multi-faceted, and multi-level perspective (March & Sutton, 1997; O'Connor, 2008). Furthermore, it should adopt a broader view and capture not only immediate success dimensions of growth and profitability but also indirect effects of organizational learning (Danneels, 2002; Griffin & Page, 1993). Future research should try to assess the success collaboration approaches properly.
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Furthermore, we typically conducted just one interview per company and thus might not have all the necessary information, given that different stakeholders in the collaboration process might have diverse experiences and opinions. Several researchers have recently called for a cross-level examination of the relationships associated with sustaining innovation performance (Abell, Felin, & Foss, 2008; Augier & Teece, 2009). Although we tried to cope with this limitation trough the analysis of secondary data and a careful selection of the right interview partners, future research should gather information from more than one interviewee per company to understand the different views of each stakeholder in the collaboration process.
Implications for Management Our results show that an advanced strategic portfolio management of UIC activities is crucial for the success of a company’s UIC activities. Especially large companies with various collaborations should organize and formalize UIC processes to enhance transparency, reduce costs and realize synergy effects. It is essential that companies carefully consider which UIC strategy to pursue and develop UIC structures and processes that fit to them. Ambidextrous and exploitation strategies require a more profound portfolio management than pure exploration strategies, where companies can rely more on decentralized management and less formal processes. It is furthermore important to be aware of certain collaboration barriers and try to cope with them at an early stage. Companies should not see universities as a knowledge vendor, where they can shop for new technologies and get some consulting services, but treat them as partners during the generation of new knowledge (Wright, 2008). Based on the analysis of empirical literature and our interviews, we suggest that companies consider the following: First, align UIC activities to technology strategy in order to archive holistic solutions to complex problems rather than solve isolated problems. Therefore establish
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long-term relationships based on a technology roadmap and involve top management to get support throughout the company. Second, organize some sort of standardization and centralized coordination of the portfolio to establish transparency, reduce costs and make use of synergy effects. Carefully choose the right mix of collaboration forms and be aware of their specific advantages and foster a collaboration-friendly organization to address possible barriers. Third, formalize UIC processes to a certain extent. This involves deliberate selection of collaboration partners, standardized contracts, UIC-specific project management, dedicated knowledge transfer processes as well as evaluation of the success. Finally, adjust the extent of the above mentioned portfolio management instruments to the desired UIC strategy. Especially ambidextrous strategies require an advanced portfolio management whereas it might not be necessary for pure exploration strategies.
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